Previous stop: [[Stop Number 442]] Next stop: [[Stop Number 2632]] ![[2767.jpg]] ## Notes I will forever struggle with images like this. I think that mostly it’s a struggle with a question of how much an image like this can mean. It feels like the photographic equivalent to the power chord in rock music- the root, a fifth, and an octave. It sounds “nice” but uncomplicated and does little on its own. Yet, sometimes the basic unit is harnessed into something which can be as aggressively catchy as *Smoke on the Water*. In other words, I have seen photographs like this harnessed to great effect when embedded into series with real clarity as to what they’re trying to say. Sometimes a simple, curious object, some interesting way that light falls, this can be taken up into a longer series which has been mulled over until it’s been distilled into its most essential elements. A simple, low-element photograph can be a short, poignant statement in such a series. I am more skeptical that a photograph like this could ever speak in such a series as this, which is nothing if not unfocused. To be able to say anything, I think that the image either has to have so few formal ideas or so few connotations which slot into some discernible narrative or idea that it's impossible to ignore the obvious connotations and connections to other parts of the series. From there, it's possible to explore some of the curious details of the actual image in order to flesh out the possible meanings from there. Yet, in a series like this where it seems as if there are as many ideas as there are photographs *at minimum*, how do we approach reading an image such as this? Let me describe every relevant detail I can pick out of this image. - The subject of this image is some sort of guide wire or stabilizing line which is connected into a metal stake driven into the asphalt which serves as the basic ground of the rest of the image. - The wire and stake seem worn by the effects of time- flecks of rust, unraveling, and a basic "weatheredness" seem to cover their whole surface. - The ground plane of the image which extends from the near foreground to the recessing background is comprised primarily of asphalt, which seems similarly worn and cracked across the face of it, with some small plants peeking up around the left side of the frame where the asphalt meets a curb. - The background of the image, as it were, contains three brighter forms- some sort of white tubing crossing from one side of the image to the other, a paint stripe on the asphalt itself, and a white concrete block just on the right side of the frame. - These three white forms are tangent to, and pass behind, the central guide-wire subject, framing in top side of the frame with a loose and geometric pattern. - The frame is buttressed on the left side by a raw concrete curb with a slight bit of grass and the white concrete parking block on the opposite right side. - Besides weathering and discoloring breaking up the asphalt field, there is also the faint shadow of the guide wire and a small leaf breaking up the uniformity of the asphalt. If the guide wire is taken as the subject of the image, and we use it as an imagined human form, what is the connotation of these elements? Very little without some supporting, buttressing images on either side of this one in a series. Without speculating as to what other images might do to this one, let's imagine some possibilities. - First, the guide wire seems to clearly be anchored into the ground plane itself. While there is nothing to suggest upwards force or lateral motion which might test the integrity of this connection, it can be assumed by the near vertical orientation of the guide wire in this image that it is, in fact, connected outside of the frame to some other object which holds it upright. The connection to the asphalt holds it in tension below. - The cool colors of the asphalt suggest some liquid association, and indeed, asphalt has been known as an phenomenally slow moving liquid. There is then a tension between the stasis suggested in the twisted wire and the rooted anchor and the possibility of a liquid, chaotic ground. - Yet, the less descriptive formal elements scattered among the top of the frame suggest a more formal reading of the image, a play of white marks on a dark ground, akin to Franz Kline with the values inverted. We can draw no real conclusions about this image in isolation. I stare at it, skeptical of it, knowing that it has a charming formal quality, but no real intention behind its organization of forms. Being that I made the image, I know that there was no intention to the arrangement other than the fact that this was the most interesting visual form I could think of to photograph at that particular bus stop. I have little else to say about this image other than two points I wish to highlight as shortcomings of the image. Both pertain to issues of indelicate forms which are tangent to the frame. On the lower left side of the image, the near-vertical line which constitutes the lit, upper edge of the concrete curb veers dangerously close to the extremities of the frame. And, though the shadow of the wire would certainly continue on out of the frame, something about the exact placement of the narrowing portion of the shadow on the edge of the frame itself draws my eye in an uncanny way to the lower right part of the frame. Sloppiness with forms on the edge of the frame was always one of the sticking points of my professors, and avoiding such indiscretions have been drilled into me as well. - Written February 03, 2024 by Nick Seitz. - Read on August 17, 2025 ## Keywords - [[Asphalt]] - [[Fussy Composition]] - [[Guide Wire]]